Philosophy Now Forum

It´s difficult to be friends with someone for whom we are a target of passive aggression, for example.

It should work if a person is simply different.
Is some sort of fascination necessary ?

I keep reminding people they are aquaintances.

An old teacher of mine might say, "We can be friends with the friendly."

Yes, I could agree with this teacher of yours.

Another question: to whom are we friendly and who is friendly towards us ?

Does friendliness radiate from us indiscriminately or does the intuition manage this output ?

A long time ago I heard someone say that, "To have a friend, you must be a friend."

So we make a pass to a potential friend and he or she passes back ?

But not always.

I can be friends with people whom I have known for a long time and who have never wronged me.

duszek wrote:So we make a pass to a potential friend and he or she passes back ?

But not always.

That is the chance you take, but if you never take a chance, you never get the benefit.

I can see recipes in this thread for people with very few friends.

Recipes ?

You might mean my last statement.
So you can be friends with people who have wronged you ?
Why not chose someone who never has instead ?

It´s o.k. to be angry with a friend and to forgive him and to go on.
But to wrong someone is a different category.

duszek wrote:Recipes ?

You might mean my last statement.
So you can be friends with people who have wronged you ?
Why not chose someone who never has instead ?

It´s o.k. to be angry with a friend and to forgive him and to go on.
But to wrong someone is a different category.

Perhaps you would explain what you mean by being wronged by someone, and how it is different than being angry about something they've done.

I am angry with a friend if he or she does not keep an appointment because ... she changed her plans or for some other selfish reasons.
She was in a conflict of interests and she decided to be selfish.
She did not MEAN to make me feel miserable. She even feels sorry and tries to apologize and seeks to compansate somehow.
This is something I can forgive, provided that such acts of selfishness happen only occasionally and not very often.

I feel wronged by a person if she behaves like a mean traitor, if she wants me to suffer, if she humiliates me (it can be subtle).
This is a sick relationship and should be stopped the sooner the better.
If someone wrongs me I treat him as a leper in a civilized way (pseudo-friendliness, fake smiles, fake cheerfulness, cheap excuses etc.)

We can be friends with people who like us and we cannot be friends with people who don´t like us.
Pretending one way or another does not work.

I find always being polite or nice to someone whether friend or foe, works for me in the long run. No one need feel bad that way and you can keep the friendship at a distance. Which gives you time to heal and reflect about what is important in the long run. No need to have enemies out there if one can help it.

It is amazing to see the transformation in people as they age. Most people become more sentimental as they age and I think that makes them a better friend because long acquaintances somehow become more meaningful and important. To know someone 30+ years is more valuable somehow than just knowing them a few years.

I think when you age, you begin to realize how few people were part of your era, witness to your life, that and the new generation is taking over and you are out of the loop....lol.

There is a sense of loneliness and the world is passing you by as you get older that make friendships more important. I try not to write anyone off...ya just never know who they will become as a person. Although, sometimes it is all I can do to be polite. I admit, I white knuckle it...okay...even blow it sometimes...lol. I have never lost a friend over it....but definitely needed some space....years of space sometimes...

Being more or less the same age helps a lot, yes.
One feels on the same wave length. One feels like siblings or cousins.